General questiosn: Are they useful? Do you actually get a decent deal? Wouldn’t the travel agent’s fees make up for whatever discount you get?
Specifics: I’m starting to plan a one-way, multi-stop international trip. I’ll be leaving Australia and want to stop in at least two cities along the way. I know for sure I want to spend about a week in Tokyo, and have money/time to make at least one other stop, but I’m still trying to figure out where (Singapore? Beijing? Hong Kong? Shanghai? Seoul?). I’ve never traveled in Asia and I’m woefully inexperienced with solo travel in places I don’t speak the language, so I’m feeling sort of overwhelmed by research.
Would a travel agent be useful in such a situation, or are they likely to tell me they can’t help until I have an actual itinerary with definite dates and places? How much would a travel agent typically cost me - is it a percentage-based or a flat fee or something else? Is there any meaningful difference between Big Chain Travel Agency (which exists in Australia!) or Independent Travel Agency?
Bonus question for any experienced travelers: solo female, late 20s, traveling to east Asia for the first time. Likes big cities with lots of history and culture, picky eater (largely vegetarian, no shellfish or pork or insects). Where would you send her?
I use a travel agent for all of my overseas trips. The most recent one was in February to New York and Chicago. My agent was great. She had all the details of flights, special fares, hotels, museums etc at her fingertips. She drew up several different itineraries when I was unsure which city I would do first; whether I’d fly between them or take the train etc.
I simply described the basic parameters and she did all the work. She’s well worth her fee.
My general experience of travelling in the last few years has been that booking flights and accommodation online is the same price or cheaper than booking through a travel agent. I think pre-Internet, travel agents would get big commissions from airlines and hotels (etc) for selling tickets and accommodation, and as such they could rebate these commissions to give you a better deal than going direct. But now, with the web making it so much easier and cheaper for airlines etc to sell direct, this has rather fallen away (this is all a bit of an assumption on my part so I would be interested if someone in the industry could confirm or deny. It seems fairly analogous to what has happened in financial services).
Having said all that, I would say that in your situation a good travel agent could definitely be useful - they should be able to give you tips for the questions you are asking, make suggestions, and generally point you in the right direction (figuratively and literally!). In the UK, I have never paid a fee for a travel agent - they still get a cut of whatever you book through them, which is why it may be cheaper to book direct online. But in your case, you may find the travel agent adds sufficient value for you not to worry about this.
In terms of general travel advice for East Asia, I have only been to Thailand so can’t be much help to you there, except to say my experience of that trip was a very positive one. If you want to chill out in paradise for a week, there are many resorts in which you can do that, and everywhere we went in Thailand you could find menus sufficiently extensive to accommodate your food preferences (beware though that most Thai dishes are spicy to some degree, and those actually described as spicy may blow your head off!). Alternatively, if you want to spend time in Bangkok there is lots to do and similarly large choice of cuisine, but I would be careful as a single female to avoid certain areas - no doubt our Thai residents SiamSam and septimus can advise on that if you do decide on Bangkok as a destination. As far as I know, the ongoing political turmoil there has not damaged the tourist industry too much. We largely felt very safe there except for one unsavoury experience in a dodgy bar (you know the sort I mean).
As one who works in the industry I can tell you that Travel Agents including online travel services continue to get commissions from hotels for bookings. A large percentage of these payments are for corporate travel services where convenience and expertise is a larger consideration than cost.
I’ve used travel agents threel times in the past ten years for some trips that involved some kinks. I presented them with the best deals what I had been able to put together myself, and just told them, “If you can do better, I’ll go with you.” Three out of three times they came thru.
No, I haven’t used one since they started charging a fee. I know I used one in 1997 when I had a fairly complicated itinerary and she saved me quite a bit of money. If I had a complicated trip, I would again. A friend of mine teaches at a different university that requires him to use their travel agent if he is traveling officially. And I bet someone in the administration is getting a nice kickback from that.
We used one for our first cruise, in 2005. It involved a flight to Hawaii and very selective booking on an interisland cruise, with two toddlers, so we felt more comfortable putting it all in the hands of a knowledgeable planner. (I believe this was at the leading edge of direct-booking for cruises and the line’s customer service was not as accessible to individuals.)
But that’s pretty much it. I prefer to spend an hour or so researching flights, hotels, cars, package deals etc. and these days it’s pretty easy to do.
A travel agent or planner might be a useful adjunct for business travelers who frequently travel on short and changing notice - their fees and somewhat higher travel costs are worth being able to leave all the problems to someone else.
Not necessarily. If you leave something as widely variable as travel to individuals who are charging it against company, school or org funds, you’re going to get waste - nonrefundable tickets with changed itineraries, retail-level booking everywhere instead of discount or agent rates, inefficient combinations. That’s why the government, most corporations and most entities like schools require the use of an agent. Paying that pro to do the job right almost certainly saves more than some English professor booking a $5k trip to a conference.
I’ve used one for my European trips–he’s a friend, so why not? In general, I’m pretty pleased–I don’t think I would’ve gotten the (often funky, non-major chain) hotels I did without him, and for trips that had a decent number of moving parts it generally spared me the time and trouble of having to figure it out.
We used one for our 10th anniversary trip to Paris five years ago. Definitely would do again- not only did we get a great deal on good accommodations, she was able to save us money in several places by offering guidance on local options for transportation, meals, etc.
I would never use for something within the US, but overseas, definitely.
We started to use one for our big Washington DC/New York City trip a couple of years ago, but she just wouldn’t really listen to us. We wanted to fly at certain times and she kept suggesting flights that were midday when we wanted overnights (flying from CA). She kept trying to get us to add on these paid tours to fill up our days after we told her we didn’t really want to do that. We just wanted help with travel and hotel. In the end, we booked our own flights, hotels and planned our days on our own. For our family it worked out better that way.
I haven’t, but I will be using one for the guests at World Fantasy Con. If I were planning a major trip, I’d certainly consider one for myself; when we went to Europe in 2009, we used an agent (though I wasn’t involved in making plans) and it was nice to have someone else handling the logistics.
Big-name guests are often more comfortable working with a pro rather than a concom. I made all the travel plans for a 2007 event, but there were some delicate third-party moments. (“…*my *cell number?”)
OTOH, I managed to upgrade one Very Big Couple to first-class going home, using my personal miles, and saved them some discomfort and hassle. One of those make-a-friend-for-life moments.
By far the most lavish and detailed trip we’ve yet taken was three weeks in Europe, and I made all the arrangements myself. It took a few days but I never considered using an agent and (likely) being pushed into packaged and standardized deals convenient and profitable for them.
My wife and I have done it both ways; using a travel agent, and doing it ourselves.
The travel agent trip was more convenient; she scored us some great deals on flights and lodgings; she knew which hotels were kind of off-the-beaten-path but still good, or in Rome at least, the ones that were expensive during the summer, but not at other times.
The one we did ourselves were equally enjoyable, although I think we sometimes got hotels and flights that weren’t as convenient. We also had itinerary plans that a travel agent could have helped with, by letting us know that we were spending way too long in one city, and could have done with one more day trip instead of another day in that city.
Basically from what I understand, you’re not necessarily getting special flights or lodgings that you couldn’t book on your own, if you use a travel agent, although that can happen. What you get is the advantage of experience- these people’s job is to find you the best lodgings and flights, so they know the tips and tricks, and may have contacts at the airlines and in your destination that make it easier for them to get you taken care of.
The tradeoff, of course, is that anyone with a web connection can get rock-bottom prices on flights, hotels, car rentals etc. It used to take an agent’s savvy and connections to get anything but standard business/retail rates.
And, of course, we were still paying the agent’s salary through commissions and the like, some bordering on kickbacks. Now the agents get nothing much in the way of commissions and charge us for the services… which makes it likely that kickbacks, defined as promote-us payments that might not be in the customer’s best interest, are probably a bigger part of the game.
A year ago, I went on vacation in South Korea. Solo travelling, no travel agent involved, and I don’t speak a lick of Korean. (though I did learn the alphabet well enough to slowly sound stuff out).
I loved it there.
Seoul is now one of my favorite cities. In the city there’s culture and art. There were historical sites & palaces. If you like outdoors at all, there are quick easy day trips to national parks. I’m also a picky eater (though I do eat meat) and had no trouble at all with food. I had an easy time getting around. People were friendly and helpful. It was a beautiful country where it’s very easy to travel.
Actually, I’d like to piggyback a related question onto the OP:
How do you find a travel agent that specializes in the area and type of trip that you’re interested in? I’m not so interested in the price aspect (although clearly less expensive is better), but it would be nice to have an agent that can translate a vague list of “things I’d like to experience” into concrete travel plans.
For example, if I’m NinjaChick, I’d like to go to an agent who’s booked travel for people with similar interests, can make recommendations on the relative advantages of various cities in Asia, has a feel or their historical and cultural interests, and has contacts in these cities for more specific requests.
Similarly, for me, I’d like to find a travel agent that can recommend areas in Central or South America that aren’t too overrun with gated all-inclusive compounds, but still have some tourist infrastructure to rely on, and be able to arrange/suggest some specific side trips our tours during the trip.
We often use a travel agent in Bangkok for airline tickets such as last year for Japan and the year before for NYC. They are still often cheaper than on airlines’ own websites. But I prefer to book directly with hotels that come recommended to me.
I use one for work, we have an extremely large volume of international travel and it’s very complicated and using an agency is the way to go, for sure.
About four years ago, I wasn’t finding any great deals online for a personal trip (domestic), so I asked our agent for some assistance. One of our employee benefits is being able to use this agency for personal travel – I think there’s some quota, like up to five times a year, but I can’t even imagine need to book that many personal trips. ANYWAY, the agent found me a great deal at a great price. I was surprised that the savings was so significant from what I was able to find online. A caveat here, this individual person knows that my work portfolio is bringing the agency a huge sum each year; I don’t know if I would have gotten the same service from a cold call to a travel agent.
We did use one to go to the Dominican this year, just because we could get a gift certificate we couldn’t get booking the same vacation online. Got the same price, to the penny.
